Mrs. Lascelles laughed.
"You never spare him, Jin, that you must allow."
"I spare nobody!" answered the other, and the dark eyes glittered fiercely.
Her friend looked at her with more than common interest, and something of pity no less than curiosity in her face.
"What makes you so wild, Jin," said she, "so wicked, so merciless, so unlike other people? I love you dearly, as you know, because I do believe you love me. But why should you hate everybody else? Above all, why are you so bitter, so unkind, so utterly without heart, towards those who show a regard for yourself? It seems to me, that directly a man betrays the slightest interest in you, down he goes in the Black List, and you pitch into him without compunction or remorse."
"Shall I make a clean breast of it?" said Miss Ross, drawing her chair near her friend. "You have often heard me say what a wretched childhood mine was, what an unhappy youth; but I have never told even you of the one crowning sorrow of my life, the one outrage that turned my few good impulses and instincts into 'malice, hatred, and all uncharitableness.' As a child, I had no parents, no relations. I was brought up by a stern old woman in black, whom I had been taught to call 'Aunty,' but who was careful to impress on me, nevertheless, that I was not her niece; and I had no playmates, nor companions of my own age. I could have clung very fondly to anything that showed interest in me or loved me. I know it, because when I was taken across the Channel to school at Dieppe, I made acquaintance with the steward's dog in the steamer, and I shall never forget the wrench of parting with that friend of six hours' standing, nor the look in his meek brown eyes when I kissed him and wished him good-bye. I remember I cried for two hours, and 'Aunty' thought it was at parting with her. She scolded me without pity; but even then I was wise enough to know she would have reviled me still more bitterly had I told her the truth. How I hated that school at Dieppe, the café au lait, the long rolls of bread, the bouilli, and the fast days. The lessons I didn't so much mind, but the 'recreations,' as they called them, I thought would have driven me mad! I was quite a little girl when I went there, but nobody petted me, nor seemed to care one snap of the fingers whether I was dead or alive; though they said I was pretty, I don't think I could have been what is called 'a taking child.' I was often punished too, and always more or less in disgrace for 'insubordination,' because I lifted up my young voice and protested against the injustice to which we were daily victims. The school consisted of French and English girls. I liked the latter least; they were the most prejudiced and overbearing, affecting airs of superiority, and calling the former 'foreigners' in their own country!
"When I left Dieppe and was removed to a convent in Paris everybody seemed glad, and I was delighted to go myself.
"Oh! Rose, you have never been in a convent! Thank your stars, my dear, or your gods, if you have any; and pray that you never may be. The discipline, the dulness, the wearisome routine, made one feel like a wild beast in a cage. I think I should have torn somebody in pieces if I had stayed. There was nothing to see, nothing to do, and nothing to learn. Though I was such a little rebel, I had neither been stupid nor idle at school, and there was little they taught in the convent, except needle-work, that I didn't know fully better than my instructors. So I ran away. I am ashamed to tell you how I managed it—what lies I told, what feelings I simulated, what smiles I lavished to induce a young man, whom I had only seen three times and spoken with twice, to assist me in my flight. He called it 'un enlèvement;' but I think I managed all the details, and had, therefore, the less difficulty in giving him the slip within an hour of my escape from prison. He was a 'friseur,' I believe. He told me he was an artist. I certainly shouldn't have known him again in a week's time, but he was useful to me, and I think he said his name was Adolphe.
"No friends—no money. A run-away school-girl, and loose in the streets of Paris. Can you wonder that my wits are sharpened, my opinions somewhat advanced? I was self-reliant, however, and had no intention of starving, so I pawned a black silk jacket of my own, and a bracelet Adolphe had lately given me. I regret to say the latter ornament fetched but a few francs. I had capital enough now to keep me a few days, and felt that I could afford to make my own bargain with an employer, whatever might be the task or the terms.
"Perhaps it was because I could do without it for the moment, that I obtained an engagement the same day to sing at one of the 'Cafés Chantants' that abound in the outskirts of Paris. In a low dress, at sixteen, singing to two hundred people I had never seen before, I give you my word I wasn't the least shy. Truth to tell, my blood was up. I had detected in the Manager's politeness, and the readiness with which he met my terms, something of that predatory tendency which I had already learned from books, from reflection, from the experience of others, affects the dealings of men towards ourselves. I was ten times better in defence, I knew, than he could be in attack; and I felt a fierce pleasure in pondering how I could turn his own weapons against himself.